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Our girls are 'guinea pigs'

Emma Scott
18/10/2007

PLANS for 12-year-old girls to be given a controversial cervical cancer vaccine have been slammed by a Prestwich religious leader.

Bury girls will be among the first in the country to take part in the immunisation programme and it is anticipated around 3,300 Year 8 schoolgirls will be vaccinated against Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), which causes 70 per cent of cases of the disease.

Parents are being sent consent forms and after next week's half-term holiday three doses will be administered by school nurses within a six-month period.

The trial has been criticised by Monsignor John Allen, of Our Lady of Grace RC Church in Prestwich, because he believes it may increase promiscuity as the HPV virus is often, although not always, passed on through sexual contact.

Monsignor Allen said girls in Bury were being used as 'guinea pigs'.

He added: "Morally it seems to be a sticking plaster response to a problem. It doesn't address the real issue of sexual promiscuity. It approaches the problem in a moral vacuum.

"Parents must consider the knock-on effect of encouraging sexual promiscuity leading to further problems.

"Instead of a defeatist attitude taking it for granted that teenagers will engage in sexual activity we can offer a vision of what a full life can be keeping yourself for a lifelong partnership in marriage."

Others, however, welcomed the plans.

Prestwich mother-of-two Angie Smith, 29, herself diagnosed and treated for cervical cancer last year, hopes vaccinating against HPV will mean her 12-year-old daughter Shannon, a pupil at Prestwich Arts College, will not suffer as she did.

Angie, of Randelshaw Street, said: "It's a great idea, I wish I'd had the chance to have it.

"I have had cervical cancer myself and I'd not want Shannon to go through it."

Reverend Debby Plummer, priest in charge of St Margaret's Church, in St Margaret's Road, Prestwich, is also supporting the pilot.

She said: "I warmly welcome this important opportunity to protect Bury's girls and I certainly don't think it is a case of science versus religion!

"I realise that some parents will want to exercise their right to have their daughter exempted from this trial, as some do from other vaccines, but I hope that most parents will think carefully about the implications of this.

"Total sexual abstinence followed by monogamy is the best protection against acquiring HPV.

"Yet a girl or a woman may still be infected against her will, either by unwelcome sexual activity or by a husband who had previous sexual partners. If every girl is vaccinated, it removes any social stigma: everyone is equally protected."

The Department of Health plans to introduce the vaccination throughout England and the University of Manchester, who secured funding from pharmaceutical company, Glaxo Smith Kline, will look into the logistics of delivering the course and investigate parents' attitudes through a questionnaire.

Each year around 1,100 British women die from the disease.

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